Dennis Nett / The Post-StandardSyracuse guard Brandon Triche gets ready for warmups before the Orange's game at Georgetown on Thursday. The Orange men visit Providence tonight at 7.
Kris Joseph contemplated what had just occurred inside the Carrier Dome. Louisville defeated Syracuse 66-60 on Feb. 14. The Orange, which was jostling with Villanova for the top spot in the Big East, lost its second game of the season.

And both of those defeats happened inside the Orange men’s own arena.

“Weird,” is how Joseph judged the phenomenon.

What’s unusual about Syracuse’s record this season is that the Orange is an unbeaten 7-0 on the Big East road going into tonight’s 7 o’clock game at Providence. The last time a Big East team finished the regular season without a road loss was 1998-99, when Connecticut went 9-0 in the conference, 16-2 overall and subsequently won the national championship.

This season, Big East road teams are 43-70 in conference play.

SU is 25-2 overall; 12-2 in the Big East. It has road games remaining at Providence and Louisville. That Syracuse has played well away from home should not surprise faithful fans of the team. Before this season started, SU owned the best conference road winning percentage among teams that have played in the league for more than five years.

The Orange is 133-110 on the Big East road. That’s a winning percentage of .547. Connecticut is SU’s closest pursuer at 124-119 (.510). No other program, except Louisville, has a winning record on the conference road. The Cardinals came into this season 21-13 (.618) in just four Big East campaigns.

Nationally, SU is the only team to have crafted an unblemished road record this year. Butler, Kansas, Kansas State and Kentucky have each lost once away from home.

SU coach Jim Boeheim and his players have said all season that the Orange likes to play on the road. SU is also 3-0 in neutral arenas this year.

“I think it’s more focus on the road,” SU guard Brandon Triche said. “Less to do. On the road, you can’t really go out. All you do is just sit there and think about the game.”

“I don’t want to say we don’t focus at home, because we do,” SU guard Scoop Jardine said. “But on the road, it’s all business. ... Sometimes when you’re on campus, you might be doing this, you might be doing that, getting your focus off of basketball. So on the road I think we just focus better.”

The night before home games, SU players are required to check into a local hotel by 9:30 p.m. The team stays together to avoid the distractions and the noise of campus. On the road, the team usually leaves Syracuse mid-day and arrives at its hotel destination by 5 or 6 p.m. Once there, players hang out with teammates.

“The coaches do a great job of preparing us,” Jardine said. “We’re always together. We get to the hotel, we eat as a team and then we go relax. All as a team. We do everything as a team.”

Most programs schedule a shoot-around or a walk-through at the opposing team’s arena. Syracuse does not. SU players see the arena for the first time when they arrive in the building, two hours before game time. Depending on the time of the game, players might seek therapy treatments during the day for anything that ails them. They might stretch with SU strength and conditioning coach Ryan Cabiles. They spend part of the day, Jardine said, watching film of their opponent.

When they finally reach the arena, they are likely to encounter noisy heckling from opposing fans. The student sections are particularly vocal. After the Georgetown road win, SU’s Andy Rautins and Kris Joseph saluted the Hoyas students who relentlessly jeered them from the time they entered the Verizon Center.

Triche said his music headphones eliminate most of the pre-game noise. But once the game gets rolling, SU players hear all the commotion.

Orange coach Jim Boeheim warns his players that road leads can dissipate quickly. The home team starts to whittle the lead and soon enough, the place is rocking with home team momentum.

Boeheim would likely attribute his team’s success on the road this season to the simple elements of performance. The Orange, after all, is 25-2 overall. The four teams that follow Syracuse in the Big East standings – Villanova, West Virginia and Pittsburgh – are a combined 14-8 on the road. Good teams win at home and on the road.

After the Georgetown win, when Syracuse sealed the victory with two late Rautins free throws, Boeheim said “the reason we’ve played so well on the road is we’ve made key free throws down the stretch.”

NOTES – The weekend was particularly cruel to two potential participants in tonight’s game.

SU’s Mookie Jones broke the ring finger on his shooting hand during Sunday’s practice at the Melo Center. Jones was participating in a routine drill when he clutched his hand, winced and quickly visited the SU trainer’s room. He left the Melo Center with a student manager, did not practice Monday and will not play tonight.

The Providence Journal reported Monday that Providence College freshman guard Vincent Council injured a hand in Saturday’s practice after he fell on a drive to the basket. Council, who is averaging 9.7 points and a 4.5 assists, also hurt his (right) shooting hand.

“We’ll see how he is today, but he is very sore right now,” PC coach Keno Davis told the Providence Journal Monday.

Council scored 16 points on 6-of-12 shooting in SU’s 85-68 win over the Friars at the Carrier Dome. He also had nine assists, five rebounds, two steals and five turnovers in 31 minutes.

Providence has lost six straight games since beating Connecticut at home on Jan. 27.